Tangential Lines: The second new direction

Portfolio Contents Home The Background Guiding Questions Portfolios, Technologies, and the Composition Classroom EPortfolios Why Portfolios? Outlining Multimodal Composition The Cs Enhanced Writing   Parallel Educational Tools First Parallel Second Parallel Third Parallel Fourth Parallel New Directions: Into Infinity (Expanding Ideas) Tangent Line 1 Tangent Line 3 Final Reflections References

“Portfolios are not an appendix, something tacked onto the tail end of classroom curriculum” (Murphy & Smith, 1999, p. 328).

What is a tangent? Instructors often hate for students to "go off on tangents," but they forget these student-tangents could be teachable moments. They forget the mathematic idea of the tangent line as a line that meets another element (curve, straight line, plane) at one particular point along that element's surface. There is immediate contact and a sense of connection. These tangent lines sometimes start at one point in an element before branching off into infinity; they branch off into new directions and leave mathematicians to wonder about this new direction. The tangent can be beneficial to expanding our notions of what it means to use portfolios and multimodality in college composition classrooms. Sometimes, the perpendicular and parallel lines drawn between portfolios and multimodal composition lead teachers and students to tangent lines branching off of particular intersections. My tangent pages are meant to mirror these tangential (though directly relevant) issues and ideas. These tangent lines are not tangential in terms of being side-notes; instead, these tangent lines act as new directions to propel portfolios and multimodality forward in today's ever-changing classrooms.

Bringing multimodality into the composition classroom Teachers’ initial exposure to different types of technology and the possibilities of utilizing that technology in the composition classroom often preclude a critical vision of how to incorporate those technologies. As excitement builds and teachers attempt to include multimodal writing assignments or uses of new and different programs and hardware into the course, classroom goals and objectives may flounder and deteriorate. Lenard (2007), for example, cautions that high expectations for new assignments may ultimately occlude the technological difficulties students face in using the new technology. Additionally, high expectations of the technology may enable some students’ hegemonic views to be foisted on other students during the class’s acclimation to the new technology and assignments (Lenard, p. 78). Lenard mentions students who might use multimodal assignments like blogging and commenting to attack openly gay or other minority students in the classroom. As Lundin (2008) suggests, even when technology does not silence minority voices, incorporating contemporary technologies into the classroom with little carry over to course objectives may be a waste of time for many instructors. In these instances, technology has not been properly incorporated into the classroom. The instructor is not aware of the tools’ potential or problems, and does not properly introduce them or their possible uses to the class (Rice, 2008). Implementing technology in this way is detrimental because it doesn't add to the work students are doing. Students can tell when the work does not correspond to the course objectives. Instructors cannot forget: students have objectives and goals for courses that sometimes align with, sometimes fall short of, and sometimes surpass instructors' goals and objectives. Students know when they are being lied to, and they know when something doesn't quite fit. Because the composition classes have so frequently been literature classes, and because they often come out of the English department, students expect a certain degree of literature and traditional essay writing. They do not expect to be working with movie-making programs or designing websites. By carefully  choosing which types of technology to use, and which types of portfolios to build, instructors can help students see the writing that exists beyond the traditional essay. Using portfolios and multimodality together in a composition classroom can be effective, but we need to spend time planning on how these things can be built into the course, how they can enhance the course, and what type of new intellectual work they push our students towards.